The groundbreaking life and work of Pyotr Kapitsa

Academician Pyotr Kapitsa reporting on his new scientific discovery at the Inventions Committee of the USSR Council of Ministers. Source: RIA Novosti

A brilliant scientist and talented leader, Kapitsa could find common ground with just about anyone, be it a simple lab worker or Soviet leader Joseph Stalin.

Last week, Russia marked the 120th birth anniversary
scientist Pyotr Kapitsa, one of the 14 Nobel laureates in science from the
country. The famous physicist not only solved some of the most complex
scientific problems of his time, but also fought for personal freedom,
fearlessly writing letters to Stalin himself.

“The genius of Kapitsa lies in the fact that his work was far
ahead of its time. It rose above all limitations and outlined the basic,
unchanging principles in science and education.” For Nikolai Kudryavtsev, the
value of Kapitsa’s contribution to science is indisputable. Kudryavtsev is
rector of the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, a university that was
founded based on Kapitsa’s ideological convictions. Speaking to RIR,
Kudryavtsev argued that the Soviet and Russian physicist set the course for
scientific development for many years following his death. “Learning from Kapitsa and using his work as
a measuring stick for our own accomplishment is relevant for all of us even in 2014,”
said Kudryavtsev.

A brilliant scientist and talented leader, Kapitsa could find
common ground with just about anyone, be it a simple lab worker or Soviet
leader Joseph Stalin, whom Kapitsa managed to convince that the USSR needed an
Institute for Physics Research. “Kapitsa’s whole idea was that the authorities
should do absolutely random and unpredictable things from time to time.
Otherwise, subordinates will always know what to expect from their leader,
which would be discouraging. Man should not know when lightning might strike,
and Kapitsa was definitely a kind of lightning,” Kapitsa’s former student,
academician Lev Lugansky, told RIR. So what was the great scientist’s life
like?

Rutherford’s favourite
scientist

In 1921, Kapitsa came
to Cambridge and asked the famous British physicist Ernest Rutherford to accept
him as a graduate student. “You have about 30 people. If you accept me, it
would be a 3 percent margin of error, which you allow for in your experiments.
Just think of me as our margin of error,” Kapitsa said. Such resourcefulness
and nerve impressed the great physicist, and Kapitsa got the place he coveted.

Rutherford particularly favored the young scientist. His
laboratory was like a small factory. Kapitsa essentially became the father of
experimental physics – a field of science which later impressed the world with
its giant colliders and super-powerful lasers. Thanks to his scientific
accomplishments, Kapitsa became a legend over the course of the 13 years he
spent in Cambridge. In 1929, he was made a Fellow of the Royal Society. In
1930, the Russian from a Communist society became a professor who was held in
high regard by the British elite. Kapitsa occasionally came back from England
to the USSR to visit his mother. Every time, the Soviet ambassador had to
provide Rutherford with a guarantee that the Russian scientist would be allowed
to return. However, in 1934, Kapitsa allowed himself to leave England without
obtaining a guarantee first. He ended up living in the USSR without the right
to leave for over 30 years.

After returning from England, Kapitsa said that he could not
conduct scientific research in the Soviet Union, since he did not have the
necessary equipment and staff. Meanwhile, all the front pages of major Western
newspapers featured headlines such as “Vanished Professor,” “Russia Arrests
Renowned Scientist,” and “Shocks for the Scientific World.” Chairman of the
Council of People’s Commissars Vyacheslav Molotov demanded a written refutation
from Kapitsa, but the scientist refused. He continued bargaining with the
authorities until he got what he needed. One of the factors that contributed to
Kapitsa’s success was his letter to Stalin, which was quite defiant in tone.
Nonetheless, the government was so interested in Kapitsa’s work that the authorities
built him an institute in just one year’s time (the Institute for Physics
Research), provided him with personnel and, most importantly, purchased
duplicates of Kapitsa’s equipment from his lab in Cambridge, where he used to
work with Rutherford, for 30,000 pounds.

Not involved with the bomb

In 1945, when Kapitsa was at the height of his fame, he was
included in the top-secret committee that was working on the development of the
atomic bomb, which was headed by Beria. Suddenly, the scientist’s fate took a
sharp turn when he wrote Stalin a letter asking the USSR leader to remove him
from the committee.

Kapitsa cited his relationship with Beria as the formal
reason for the request, but the real reason, as Kapitsa later explained, was
his attempt to protect his friend, a Danish scientist named Niels Bohr, from
Soviet intelligence. After his conflict with Beria in 1946, Kapitsa was in
disfavor for nine years, but continued his research in physics. He became
interested in a new field – high-power electronics and plasma physics, and
created the first high-frequency generators at his summer home. In 1955, after
Stalin's death, Kapitsa was reinstated as director of the Institute for
Physical Problems. He not only infected young scientists with his ideas, but also
secured government funding for new projects. He argued for the need to support
his developments by claiming that the team would be able to create beams of
electromagnetic radiation of colossal power that could be used to take down
enemy planes. Even then, the idea of cutting the wings of enemy planes with
laser guns made quite an impression on party members.

Pyotr Kapitsa discovered the phenomenon of superfluidity of
liquid helium, for which he received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1978.
Kapitsa introduced the term ‘superfluidity’ to the academic community.

He also
worked in the field of low temperature physics and studied very strong magnetic
fields and high-temperature plasma.

Kapitsa also developed a turboexpander - a
high-performance industrial installation used for the liquefaction of gases.

Additionally, Kapitsa’s pendulum is named after Pyotr Kapitsa. Kapitsa’s
pendulum is a mechanical phenomenon that demonstrates stability at a point of unstable
equilibrium.